


The dark seeks dark;

by hongmunmu



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: DAIMP, F/F, Inquisition Agents (Dragon Age)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-19
Updated: 2015-10-19
Packaged: 2018-04-27 01:35:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5028595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hongmunmu/pseuds/hongmunmu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tamar blocked out the light in the door. For once, she wasn't complaining.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The dark seeks dark;

“Why are you still here?”

The voice cracked Sidony’s trail of thought. Every time Tamar spoke it felt like a slap in the face and a stab in the gut. It put feeling into a faded world.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Sidony’s book snapped shut between her long, taut, smooth hands, the colour of tea. She heard the exhale from behind her, wincing in anticipation as the metal-clad woman stomped toward her. Everything was a war to Tamar. She spoke like a dog barking and walked like she was trying to destroy as much as she could. It set Sidony on edge; made her uncomfortably aware of her own physical presence as well as Tamar’s. Sidony despised being a body.

Tamar had reached her, already reaching for the closed book. She snatched it with still-gloved hands. Her armour was still dirty, bloodstained, and Sidony paid more attention to this than she did to the book being removed from her hands. She was tempted to wrinkle her nose, but didn’t, for it was becoming a habit and she wasn’t a teenager any more. She glanced at Tamar, and unbeknownst to her, the urge to twitch a face muscle had migrated from her nose to her eyebrow, which she raised halfway up her forehead into a fantastic arch. Tamar could never place how Sidony had made the practice of eyebrow-raising into an art. No doubt it had something to do with how immaculately shaped they were, Tamar thought self-consciously, furrowing her own, rather bushy, brows. She turned her attention away from the necromancer’s awe-inspiring eyebrows to the book she had taken. She scoffed at it once and tossed it onto a nearby table, hoping that it was an icy enough response not to diverge the fact that she couldn’t read the title. A small subconscious voice told her that the mage probably already knew, but she hushed it.

“Don’t play around. You’re held here by no contract. Why don’t you go back to Nevarra? You’ve certainly complained enough.”

Sidony gave a withering smile. “You came all the way to the library, your own personal hell, to lecture me on my life choices? I suppose I should be flattered.”

 Tamar frowned. She hadn’t quite been paying attention to what Sidony said, for she was focused on the foreign nature of the thick Nevarran accent. She hadn’t quite noticed it while preoccupied on the battlefield, she guessed, but she had to admit she wouldn’t have minded if she heard it more. She had exchanged few words with Seeker Pentaghast, and hadn’t heard many other foreign accents during her time in the Inquisition’s cells. Besides Orlesian, she supposed, but really, one can survive quite comfortably without ever encountering an Orlesian accent. She brought her gaze to Sidony’s pale eyes.

“I’m just questioning why you’re so bloody happy to stay in a place you’ve complained to the Void and back about, considering all and any obligations to keep you here are gone.”

Sidony somehow arched her eyebrow even further. Tamar decided it had to be something to do with magic, because she’d caught glimpses of that Vivienne woman doing the same thing.

“If I recall, you also have no obligations to stay here, Tamar. Was it not the commander’s word that you would be free should you fight for the Inquisition during the campaign against Corypheus?”

It was odd how soothing the lofty words and voice could be from such a hated mouth. Sidony’s lips were naturally pale and bloodless, defined from the rest of her ochre skin only by shadow and relief. Her face was bare, adorned with no makeup nor face paint, yet somehow her features stood out of their own volition. Something to do with Nevarran blood, Tamar decided.

It took her a while before she registered that she had been asked a question; preoccupied with the sharp curves of Sidony’s defined, austere face. She flushed in embarrassment, and felt intensely grateful for the deep red war paint concealing a large portion of her face. Sidony smirked.

“Perhaps you do have a reason for staying,” she said airily. Tamar didn’t know if she wanted to hit her or kiss her. Impulsively, she grabbed at a lock of Sidony’s thick, dark, twisting hair – you would never guess she could hide such a mane under her hairnets, she mused – and pulled sharply, snapping her head back and chin up. Sidony just gave a strangled laugh like she had been waiting for it.

“If you _are_ going to assault me, perhaps you could make it a fair fight, and remove those dirty pieces of metal from your person.”

Somehow the taut position only thickened Sidony’s accent.

“That would be a fair fight if you _weren’t_ a mage,” Tamar mused. Sidony actually laughed, and fisted both her clawlike hands in Tamar’s short up-do. The pressure pulled her close-cropped hair out of its knot, and it fell about Sidony’s fingers in short strands, each one bent or curled slightly from the time they’d been held in the knot.

“I have wanted to do that for some time,” Sidony murmured. “Your hair always seems dying to be loose.”

“Perhaps Belinda would have been a better choice.”

This elicited quite the reaction. Sidony snorted. “Belinda? Dear me, you are slower than I originally thought. Belinda and I have nothing in common at all.”

Tamar scowled. “And we do?”

“Are we not both practicers of the forbidden arts? Have we not both devoted ourself to our work in body and soul?”

Tamar laughed, tightening her grip.

“Don’t bullshit me for this. What devotion have you shown? You’re a shallow predator, not a servant to your work.”

The witch could only give her another simpering smile. Something different was in her eyes.

“If only you knew.”

  
The reaver sensed there was more to be heard here, sensed there was a story. Perhaps something beneath the smooth, unbreakable shell. There could be more to this woman, she realised, a wealth of background and explanations prior to her time with the Inquisition that could explain everything. Explain her behaviours and her arrogance and her cynicism.

But truth be told, in that moment, Tamar didn’t care at all.

She kissed her, and they both tasted like blood and salt.


End file.
